1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a system for distributing digital content. In particular, the invention relates to a viewable information creating system, a digital content creating system, and a digital content creating program which are suitable for outputting digital content in a layout that is easily viewable for a user.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, systems for providing digital content, such as news, include, for example, a personal electronic newspaper system (hereinafter referred to as a first conventional example) as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 4-192751. Current technology also includes, for example, a mail-order-sale-catalog creating system (hereinafter referred to as a second conventional example) disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 7-200701.
The first conventional example includes, an electronic newspaper system in which article information transmitted from an article information database (the database is hereinafter abbreviated to simply the DB) containing article information on newspaper articles is received, and is displayed on a screen in a reproduced form, an information storage unit in which interest and knowledge of a plurality of users are stored as space forming information for a plurality of individuals and a learning unit which learns individual-oriented space-forming information from a record of retrieval made by users. The first example can further include a screen operation unit by which, by operating the screen, from the article information DB, article information for each user is acquired based on the individual-oriented space-forming information, and is displayed in a reproduced form, and a control unit for controlling the information storage unit, the learning unit, and the screen operation unit.
Accordingly, this makes it possible to easily obtain article information matching interest and knowledge that each user has, and more detailed article information can be provided.
In the second conventional example, a goods information file containing goods information (photographed images and explanations of goods) to be listed in catalogs about types of goods, a customer information file containing personal information on specified attributes of individuals, and a goods condition file in which conditions matching the attributes of the personal information can be set for the types of goods that are provided. By using a listed goods extracting unit, the personal information in the customer information file and conditions in the goods information file can be compared, and only a type of goods which matches the conditions for each customer is extracted. A layout processing unit reads and lays out goods information on the extracted goods. After the goods information which is laid out is output from a color electronic printer onto paper, the paper is processed in the form of a booklet by a book-binding machine, and is sent to the customer.
Accordingly, this makes it possible to create a customer-unique catalog that contains only goods adapted for each customer.
Document layout technologies can include, for example, a document processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-229364, a document layout method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 05-073542, a document layout method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 05-081253, a document output method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 05-089102, a document layout method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-342428, and a document processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 08-227416 (these are hereinafter referred to as third conventional examples). Also, a document shaping apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 63-221457, and a document shaping method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 05-081247 (these are hereinafter referred to as fourth conventional examples) are included. Moreover, a document shaping apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 01-180062 (hereinafter referred to as a fifth conventional example), a variable print system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-208071 (hereinafter referred to as a sixth conventional example), and an individual-oriented electronic newspaper system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 04-192751 (hereinafter referred to as a seventh conventional example) are included.